Our Own Terms

Our own terms. We like to do things on our own terms when we want to do them. The last thing we want is for someone else to dictate our lives. Whether it’s parents, teachers, bosses, spouses or the government, we do not like to be told what to do. We have a natural instinct to buck authorities. I have had my share of bucking authority from a very young age and it’s still difficult to control sometimes.

The authorities thought that they were in control of the death of Jesus Christ but they were not. It had nothing to do with the authority of the Pharisees or the authority of Pilate, it was completely in the control of God. This brings us to our seventh and final saying of Christ from the Cross.

“Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’  And having said this he breathed his last.” - Luke 23:46. Christ was in complete control of His own death. I believe if He wanted to stay there any longer He could have, but the time had come and He was “finished” with what He came to do. He decided when it was time to die and He decided to commit His Spirit back to the Father!

Jesus had told His followers that He was the one that would decide to lay down His own life and that He was the one able to take it up again. “‘For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.’” - John 10:17-18.

As Jesus was dying on the Cross, He told the world that “it is finished”, and once it was finished He told the Father that He was coming home!  The seven sayings started with Jesus praying to the Father that He would forgive “them” and now it ends with Jesus addressing the Father once more to tell Him that He is giving His Spirit back to the Father. What a wonderful picture of love.

The definition of love can be summed up in this, “"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” - John 3:16. God loves you. He loves you so much He sent His one and only Son to die in your place!  Have you accepted Him as you Savior?

Have a great Good Friday and God bless.